Sunday, December 27, 2009

The Bone-Breaking Leavenworth Trip of 2009 Part I

It all started out so well.

December Eleventh, around 9:30, my brother Ben, our friend Devon, my wife Lindsay and I left Pocatello, ID and set out for Leavenworth, WA. My friends Rob and Brooke were getting married there on the Fourteenth and we planned to spend a few days getting up there, I was to perform the ceremony in full Santa Claus regalia, we'd spend a few days enjoying the Bavarian style village there, then work our way back home.

Like I said, it started out really well. We piled into Strontium, loading him full of clothes, bedding and tuxes and hit the road. We all get along quite well, and it was a great trip up. we stopped at graveyards, posed with giant stone animals, visited breweries, laughed a lot and made pretty good time. We found ourselves enchanted with Ellensburg, a small town with a great brewery, excellent pasta place and we managed to breeze into their downtown just in time to catch a free showing of the Muppet Christmas Carol! I really have no idea how you could hope to beat that, frankly.

I'll keep it pretty short here, typing is really difficult and I do want to get caught up with my blog, but suffice to say, it was a really fun road trip. I'd traveled with Devon before, we took a greyhound bus to California together for Muppet Fest, and between him and my brother, entertainment was in copious supply.


We arrived in Leavenworth late, after dark. Every weekend around Christmas, the town does a big lighting ceremony and we caught the tail end of that. We were shocked at the sheer number of vehichles pouring from that little village. We'd kind of assumed that the place was just a goofy, little tourist town, mostly unnoticed by people at large. Instead we were surrounded by cars, trucks, tour busses, any type of mototrized you could imagine.

We quickly retreated to the nearby town of Wenatchee for the night and spent the evening wandering around downtown in the cold winter air. The next day we'd meet with Rob and Brooke and her family, and spend some time in Leavenworth.

3 comments:

Maureen Hume said...

Oh, man, you're such a tease! I didn't notice 'part one' until your post stopped without the ending.
I'll be back tomorrow!

Unknown said...

haha I'm always writing serials, it seems. Of course, I have an excuse this time, it just hurts too dang much to type for longer!

Sherry said...

Well, at least the first part isn't so bad. I know the climax is coming in part 2 (or 3...or 4 depending on how long winded you get (and long winded isn't a bad thing in this case, mind)). It sounds like the road leading up to 'the trial' was good....as it usually is. "Ending sucked, but it was one hell of a ride," I do think is how I'd describe it in a drug-addled state to anyone who asked. When I broke a bone, all I could say is "...but he stole my ball!!" and then try not to cry (I was young, and dumb...and cried in front of my friend who said that he liked me because I didn't cry...we weren't friends after that 'cause I did cry...in front of him 'cause he was in the nurse's office with a nose bleed. Oh, that days of our youth.)

Now, once you're all healed, we'd like to hear more about this Ellensburg you spoke of. I for one want a review of the beer. I kinda want an ale like beer to imbibe on over New Years. It seems to be a good thing to do. May you have one for me (assuming you like that sort of thing) that is.

Good luck with part 2! We are all looking forward to it.